


Give me a second, I need to get my story straight

by Tabata



Series: Leoverse [68]
Category: Glee
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Criminals, Crimes & Criminals, Gen, Heist
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-03-05
Updated: 2015-03-05
Packaged: 2018-03-16 11:33:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 11,423
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3486671
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tabata/pseuds/Tabata
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Blaine and his team has been working on the Scotts' Vault heist for a year.<br/>The plan is simple. Annie finds out the security codes from Martin Scott and gives them to Leo. Leo uses the codes to turn off the security system of the vault. Adam and Cody break into the vault, while the rest of them crash Martin Scott's party.<br/>Nothing can go wrong. Except that Scott is working with the Feds, and the Feds have a deal to make.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Give me a second, I need to get my story straight

**Author's Note:**

> **WARNING:** This story is an **AU** from the original 'verse. What happens in here has little to none correlation with what happens in Leonard Karofsky-Hummel VS The world or Broken Heart Syndrome. The characters involved are (mostly) the same, but situations and relationships between them may be completely different.  
>  In this particular verse Blaine and the boys (and girl) are a criminal team, very much like the one you can find in certain kind of movies or tv series (anyon said Leverage?), that's specialized in thefts. At some point, Federal Agent Sam Vanderbilt (yes, she finally has a surname) makes a deal with them: all their records will be erased if they start working with the government.  
> This story right here is the very beginning of it all.

They brought him in a standard federal interrogation room.  
He has seen enough of them to believe that they build them in series and then ship them all over the country, forcing agents to move in the same space everywhere. Blaine can almost imagine hundreds and hundreds of questioning sessions choreographed in the exact same way in every state. Maybe the Feds even take classes.

The room is empty except for the camera, the uncomfortable chair he's sitting on, the fake wall mirror and the table he's currently handcuffed to, which takes up half the space. On the other side of it there's a second chair for the agent that will come to talk to him when they decide that he has spent enough time alone.  
Despite years of criminal history, they still hope that a room devoid of any possible distraction and the right amount of solitude can lead a man to spill whatever beans they need him to, but that's not how it works.  
Not with men like him anyway.

He pulls at the chain through the hole in the table to raise his tied hands, and waves at the mirror, smiling.  
He doesn't know how many of them are there, but there must be more than one – he always draws crowds, when they actually manage to bring him in – and he hopes to frustrate one of them enough to come inside.

In fact, a few moments later – enough tomake it look like it's their decision – the door opens and someone comes through the door. Blaine smirks as he recognizes the tall, slim figure of agent Vanderbilt. She's a fierce woman and an even fiercer cop he had the pleasure to meet several times in the past five years. A woman he wasn't expecting to find here in Abilene, Texas. This pleasant surprise changes everything. He doubts she would come out of her fancy office in Quantico just to slap his wrist after the petty crime he and his boys have been arrested for this time. 

"I must have been bad, if they sent you," he says.

"You are always bad, Anderson," she answers, her lips curling in a charming smile.  
She never plays good or bad cop with him. It's more like a game of who's gonna fuck the other up first between them, and there's no need to be comforting or threatening for that. Somewhere along the way they have agreed to be civil in their reciprocal attempt to ruin each other. "It's always a matter of how much."  
She reaches up and turns the camera off.

Blaine watches the red blinking light stop. "Oh, you turned off the camera," he comments with a chuckle. "Either you want some intimacy or something illegal."

She doesn't answer to that as she leans against the table next to him, her long legs are all he can see for a moment, until he looks up. "I was going to go with the second, but now you're confusing me," he jokes. "I'm flattered, but you are not my type."

"Neither are you mine," she says, crossing her hands on her lap. "I like my men younger than me."

"This is something we have in common," Blaine grins. "So, this leaves us with our second option. I am here for a reason."

"You have been arrested for theft, Anderson," she points out. "This is the reason you are here."

"I didn't actually _steal_ anything," he says. He was in the room with the other hundreds guests of Martin Scott when the cops swarmed in, on account of the quite illegal act that was going on in Scott's vault a few feet below, in the cellar. But his boys were there, perpetrating that very same act.

"But your boys did," agent Vanderbilt says in fact. "And I have no doubt you sent them. After all, you were there with a fake i.d., pretending to be..." The woman opens his file – which looks more like a proper book nowadays – and quickly reads the last page. "Mr. Campbell. Let me guess, a lawyer?"

"A tycoon. I had never played one before," Blaine says with a grin. "I thought Martin Scott would have been glad to have me if I pretended to have a lot of money in several of the countries he's trying to make business in. Besides, he's got an army of lawyers already, but he lacks funds."

"You did a pretty good job on the background of this one," Vanderbilt comments, an amused undertone in her voice.

He was not the one fixing the proper backround for his alias – Leo always takes care of such things – but he can take the compliment and pass it on. "As you did, ma'am," Blaine says, instead. "I must admit, you got me this time."

As soon as the cops swarmed the room, he realized it was a trap.  
Unfortunately, it was too late for such a realization, but he has to give it to the Feds, they were smart. They usually aren't – always several steps behind him and his team – so he has to acknowledge their success this time. A victory must never go unnoticed, that's a rule of his.

He and his boys never rush into a heist. They do several background checks on their target, organize a plan down to the last detail, and they always have at least two different escape plans in the event that the first one doesn't go exactly as they have planned. And _exactly_ means exactly with him, at the smallest glitch he always calls everything off. But he didn't see one this time.

Preparations never take less than six months. This time, they took almost a year, and that was probably what made Blaine so sure they were 100% onto something and nothing could go wrong. He evidently should have known better.

The Scott family's vault was the perfect target. Guarded enough to contain something worth the pain of all the preparations, but not impossibly so. Blaine firmly believes that every system can be cracked and every security protocol can be breached, but it's not always safe to do that. The fact that you _can_ do something doesn't automatically mean that you should. As much as he loves a good heist, to make money and cheat the system, he's never been the kind of man who risks everything just to show that _he can_.  
He doesn't need that kind of compensation.

It was totally possible to open this particular vault, tho.  
Given that you had the codes to open the three different doors it was hidden behind, and you had a way to disable the alarm system, which was a masterpiece of advanced technology, nothing to do with the good ol'keypads, laser grids or even the eye scanners, which were the latest gadgets when he was still personally doing all the work. And, of course, a good picklock.

He had all those things, or at least he had the means to get them all.  
The codes were the tricky part. The only person who knew them was Martin Scott himself, the one and only heir of the Scott Family. Luckily, he was a bright young man in his twenties, so Blaine could send Annie after him without feeling too guilty. Annie did a wonderful job in charming the codes out of him. Blaine was extremely proud of the way she became part of Martin's life month after month, until he even popped the question and a wedding was being organized. Not that she was ever going to show up at the altar – they were supposed to be in Australia by the time the wedding march was going to be played – but the idea was nice nonetheless. And she had fun trying on all those wedding dresses.

Once Leo had the codes, he run them through his laptop – or whatever – and he came up with a way to use them. Blaine is not even sure what it is that Leo does, but the kid is able to open anything, anywhere, even if he's not in the room, as long as he's got a computer, energy drinks and junk food. And that's all Blaine needed to add him to his team when he found him in that foster home five years ago.

Codes at the ready, they only had to find the right moment to get to the vault.  
That's when Annie informed them of the party Martin was going to give. Blaine should have known that was too good to be true. Annie was supposed to suggest to her fiancèe some kind of party, but Martin came up with the idea all on his own, and it looked like a stroke of luck. But of course it wasn't. The man had been working with the Feds all along, so after giving Annie a way to find the codes of the vault, he also gave her the perfect excuse to use them a couple of weeks later. The only reason why Blaine didn't suspect anything was that, at that point, Annie had been Martin's supposed girlfriend for months, so there was nothing wrong with him giving a party and informing Annie about it. The fact that it came right when they needed it _could really have been_ just a coincidence. Frankly, he didn't think the Feds were smart enough (or willing to spend enough) to put up such a long show.

Blaine infiltrated the party as Mark Campbell, and directed the whole operation via radio through some sweet earpieces Leo came up with. Leo himself was in a van just outside Scott's house, overseeing everyone's movements on a digital map of the house and sending Matt – a dashing vision in his brand new waiter outfit – to stop anyone who got too close before it could become a threat. Adam and Cody were taking care of the vault. Cody was supposed to pick the vault's lock after the codes were inserted and Adam was there to protect him, in case things got hairy. But they didn't have the time to, because the moment they set foot in the room where the vault was, agents caught them, Blaine, Annie and Matt. And even Leo didn't have the time to run, which was proof enough that the Feds were just waiting for the right moment to intervene.

"Are you revisiting the recent events that led to your and your boys' capture, Anderson?" Agent Vanderbilt says, dragging him back to the present.

"Actually, yes," Blaine replies, not even flinching. "I got lost in my head while waiting for you to tell me why I've been brought here and not just locked up in a cell, waiting for my lawyer who won't be able to do anything for me except discussing a plea bargain."

"Which you wouldn't obtain," Vanderbilt informs him, smiling. "Just so you know. You and your team have been caught in the act of opening the vault, which will translate into an awful amount of years for each and everyone of you if I leave this room with a negative answer on your part."

"An answer to what?" Blaine's voice is calm, but it has a slightly nervous undertone now. Pleasantries with the Feds are funny until they are not anymore.

Agent Vanderbilt is one of those women that look stunning in a suit and promise to look even better in a dress, but who manage to make you forget all that because all you see in them is the strenght, stubborness and malice they could be capable of. She's beautiful and she's dangerous, and therefore she's kinda of unsettling too. Especially when she looks at him as she does now, like she knows something that he doesn't.

"I can clean your kids' records," she says.

"My kids need no cleaning."

Her smile doesn't falter. "Let me rephrase that," she says. "I can prevent the only one you've got clean to go to jail."

*

Leo hates interrogation rooms more than he hates prisons, for a variety of reasons.

Not that he's ever been happy to go to jail when it happened, but at least, once you cross the gate and you hear it slam behind you, you know exactly where you stand and what are your options. You leave your stuff at the entrance, they give you your prison gear, your nice roll of toilet paper, your tootbrush and everything. You have your cell, your cellmate, your work schedule. And for the rest of the time you have plenty of things to do and time to do them, and issues to worry about, including who to befriend and who to stay away from. And to make clear to everybody that you're not there to be raped. Never a dull moment, as they say.

 

Interrogation rooms are dull instead, some kind of black holes they put you in, for hours, hoping that you either fall in them and lose yourself, or talk to them and declare yourself guilty in order to make their job way easier. But you don't want to do that. Pleading guilty never really works. The police never play in your favor, just a little bit less in their, which is not good enough for you anyway. If you get caught, you plead innocent, no matter when, where or how they get you. Be innocent at heart, that's what Blaine always says.  
The act worked better when Leo was younger and they sent nice women detectives to interrogate him. They talked softly and sweetly to him, trying to establish if Blaine was abusing him and brainwashing him into being a criminal. He would say no, but he would play along and be the sweetest thing they had ever seen. Sometimes, if there wasn't enough evidence, he would get away with it by just blinking his incredibly long eyelashes.

Now, it doesn't work anymore.  
In the past two years he grew five inches and lost what baby fat he still got left. The cute little kid turned into this tall, gangly young man who gains some very disturbingly lustful glances from female and male agents alike, but can no longer move them with tenderness. His interrogation rooms policy now is to stay quiet as long as possible and then, when he decides to talk, stubbornly refuse to give to any question a useful answer whatsoever, no matter how boring this game is.

But this is very hard for him, because he's not the patient type. He's not patient and he's not contemplative. He's as far as humanly possible to that _zen attitude_ Matt is so good at.  
So, maybe, he doesn't hate interrogation rooms per se – they are quiet places, after all – but they are boring and he hates to be bored. And he hates to be tied up and unable to move. Ropes and handcuffs make him nervous for reasons he doesn't like to dwell in, and he's hyperactive. He can't stay still for long, and the fact that he can't even stand up makes him want to stand up, which is a frustrating cycle.

"Are we done yet?" He snaps at some point, after being quiet for the better part of an hour.

The agent they sent him must be in his fifties, and he's losing hair on the top of his head. That leaves him with a bald spot that he tries to cover with a comb-over is not very good at.  
He's got brownish hair and small gray eyes, and he looks like a man whose life at home is not very peaceful. Leo bets his wife is more badass than he is.

"I'm glad you finally decided to speak to me," he says.

"It won't last long," Leo says, totally unimpressed by the man in front of him.

Agent Comb-over has got a weird smile. It's sort of a smirk that he probably finds smug, but that makes him look like he's having a nervous breakdown. He opens Leo's folder, which is _still_ on paper, by the way. Did these people ever enter the 21st century? "So, your name is Leonard, correct?" He asks.

Leo arches an eyebrow. This guy must be joking, right? He's been brought in more times than he can count on his fingers and toes, and he's still asking confirmation of his name?  
"What does your piece of paper say?" He replies.

The man clears his throat. "And you're seventeen."

"I'm also tired of being in this fucking room," Leo says. He tugs at the chain tying him to the table, but it gives in just a few inches. "Either you charge me with something or you let me go."

"Do you know what this means?" The man continues.

"That I'm four years away from legal drunkness?"  
"No. That you will be sent in a real jail this time, if I charge you with something," Agent Comb-over says, calmly. 

Leo's eyes darken a bit. "I've already been in a real jail, agent," he says, pulling the chain enough to tap a long finger on the first page of his records. "Maybe they didn't give you the updated version."

For truth's sake, it was just one time last year, but it was tough – tougher than he was used to in juvi – and he would like not to repeat the experience any time soon. Blaine was really worried, but they had no other choice. They had to cover for Cody – there was no way to send him to jail and have him back whole – but Adam and Annie weren't even near the crime scene at the time and Matt, who could have been incriminated instead of Cody, had done time for that very same reason two times already. It had to be Leo.

Doing your first _real_ time in a medium security prison was no joke. Especially in Leo's conditions. Blaine had actually asked their lawyer to aim for the psychiatric, but apparently Leo wasn't crazy enough to be in a madhouse. Unfortunately, what he lacked in craziness he had in violence – due to his rage issues – and he wasn't eligible for minum security. 

One foot in there, and Leo had known instanly he couldn't survive it just looking tough. He had to actually _be_ tough, but he couldn't compete with grown-ups. So he did the only thing he could do, and assaulted a guard. Twice. The ward was smart enough to keep him in solitary for the better part of the three months he had to be there. When he got out though, he was quite shaken and worn out, and they all had to put him back together.

"All the more reason not to go back there," the man in front of him is speaking and Leo has to force himself to focus on his rounded face to hear what he's saying. "You already know what it is like."

Leo frowns. "Listen, dude, what the hell are you doing?" He asks. "Is this an interrogation, a lecture on juvenile crimes or what? I must tell you, your agent skills are all over the place."

This seems to hit home, because the agent's smile disappears, leaving a grimace on his lips. "What were you doing in that van outside Martin Scott's house?"

Leo sits more straight. "Oh, that's more like it," he comments. "I was listening to music."

"In a van?"

"Why not? Van's got the greatest acoustic," Leo says.

"There was ten thousand dollars worth of equipment in there," the agent says, possibly expecting it to be some kind of statement that would prove a point. Leo doesn't see it.

"I'm kind of a music enthusiast."

Agent Comb-over is either not impressed or quite interested. It's hard to tell when his face is so totally unespressive and plain. "According to the tech lab, you were connected via radio with the rest of your team."

"What team?" Leo asks.

"The team that was trying to get into Scott's vault under your supervision," the agent insist.

Leo frowns. "I don't understand. Didn't we say that I was listening to music?" He asks. "You're really confusing me."

 

The man stands up – showing that he's not more threating standing than he was sitting down – and walks around the table, sitting on the edge of it, right next to Leo. "Then, let me be more clear," he says slowly. "You were in a van outside Martin Scott's house giving instructions to your friends through some earpieces."

Leo stays silent for a little while, then smiles. "But you can't prove that, can you?" He says. And he doesn't need an answer to that. Yes, he was in a van outside Scott's house. And yes, Blaine and the others had earpieces. But he worked hard to erase any trace of connection between the two things. They can _assume_ he was speaking to them – because he had a transmitter and they had earpieces – but they can't prove it. Also, his three computers are currently deleting all data, hopefully they will finish before the police lab rats can understand how to stop the process. The only thing they can charge him with is weapon-possession.

"Don't worry, Leonard," the agent says. "We will find a way to prove that. It won't be hard with your records."

"Be my guest," Leo shurgs. He's not really worried about all this, but being in that room is really taking its toll on him. His leg is already jumping uncontrollably and, no matter how hard he tries, he can't stop from opening and closing his hands continuously. He knows that this doesn't work well with the kind of attitude he is supposed to keep during an interrogation, that police agents will take all these as signs of his nervousness – when in fact he's not nervous at all about the situation – but he can't control his body, that's pretty much the point. "Are we done yet?" He asks again, this time more anxiously.

And Comb-over notices it. "What's wrong, Leonard?" He asks, looking at the way he wraps his left legs around the chair leg to stop it from moving. "You alright?"

"Yes," he snaps, and then he takes a deep breath. He shows him his tied hands. "I'm just... tired of waiting here for nothing, okay? Can you at least uncuff me?"

When the man smiles this time, Leo doesn't like it at all.  
"Oh, I know you have ADHD," he says, and he sounds like this gives him immense pleasure. "But you won't be leaving this room or that chair until I say so. And I won't say that until you give me enough to lock you and your team in a cell long enough for y'all to grow old in it."

"I have nothing to say," Leo hisses.

The man shrugs. "And I have nowhere to go," he says. "I don't mind keeping you company as long as it's needed."

*

Handcuffs are pretty easy to break free from.  
Matt has never understood why the police keep using them, or why more criminals don't learn how to free themselves from them. Ropes and chains are not inescapble either, but they require way more ability and practice, and most of people lack the time, patience and drive to learn such a skill. After all, the majority of criminals are burglars, thieves or gang members. People like that are usually not familiar with the term _escapist_ , let alone learning how to be one. And as far as police are concerned, they probably use handcuffs because they are more socially acceptable or something like that. Matt's pretty sure that seeing someone tied up on the news would outrage the public eye. _What is this, reality or a pirate movie? Are we going to make burglars walk the plank next?_ It wouldn't be orthodox maybe, but quite funnier than waiting in an empty room for two hours.

Certainly, he could easily dislocate his thumbs and get free, but he knows he wouldn't go very far. There's probably someone watching him behind the fake-mirror, and even it there is not, Matt counted at least ten agents in the facility while they were bringing him here, and it's not quite sure he could take them all down before one of them shoots him. So, escaping doesn't seem to be an option.

He can spend the time reasoning about what happened and trying to forsee what to expect. They have been all caught in a quite stupid way, which means they have been set up. Annie usually smells danger from afar, and if she didn't, then the Feds worked really hard for her not to. They were clearly expected both to be at the party and to try and steal from the vault. Probably the party itself was a trap. A clever one, since nobody – not even Blaine – saw that coming. If they can prove they worked together, which most surely can be done, then they are in a lot of trouble.

This is not the first time they are in a tight spot. Actually, this is not even the tightest spot they've been in – rescuing Adam from that motherfucking Swiss bank after the alarm went off was way worse than this – but it's quite complicated, that's for sure. Anyway, there's really nothing he can do for now, so nothing is exactly what he will do.

Fretting over something he can't control is not his style. It takes up too much energy for no good reason at all. The first rule of every trick he has ever learned is that anxiety doesn't help you. Franctically pulling at the ropes around your wrists doesn't get your hands free, it makes your situation worse. It's always controlled movements that let you out of restrains. Few, carefully thought moves, that's how you do it. The moment you lose your mind facing a knot or a lock, you fail. And you are most likely to die, if you're also immersed in water – but that's not always the case, of course. He's just going back on memory lane, here.

His father tought that you should live your life as if you had a finite amount of energy, and be very careful when and how you decide to spend it. He also thought that homosexuality was a sin, and that Matt would survive the water torture cell without the key, if God really found him worthy to be saved.  
God didn't, or He was temporarily busy doing something else, Matt is not sure and he's never been really interested enough in religion to question God's intentions, or His presence for that matter. He lost consciousness. He has no idea of who saved him, only that he stayed in a coma for a week, and when he woke up in the hospital, his father and the rest of the troupe had vanished.

Truth be told, he never really _looked for_ them after that – he thinks that goes quite without saying – and then Blaine came along, totally unexpected (maybe this God guy finally looked his way?), and offered him another chance out of the Youth Center he ended up in. All in all, almost dying in a giant fish tank has had its perks.

The agent who finally enters the room is a redhead woman who would look like Annie if Annie was plain, which she definitely isn't. The agent also has a permanent frown that makes her look uglier than she actually is. That's another reason why people should never get angry. Rage turns people into monsters. If this woman and the Hulk weren't enough proof of that, Leo would be another. When his bro's chilling, he's the hottest motherfucker he has ever seen. Matt doesn't usually jump to such conclusions with ease because this level of appreciation leads to lust, and lust leads to awkward situations generated by the _very generous_ gift Mother Nature gave him, forgetting the tiny detail of making more people able to receive it. But Leo has a strong effect on him. Except when he's distressed or angry – which is a lot – and he turns into this ball of rage, and his beautiful face gets all crumpled. Still beautiful, but less than usual. That is why he decided that it was his mission to keep him as calm as possible.

"So," the agent sits down in front of him and opens his folder with a nervous gesture. "Matthew, my name is agent Lynch and, given what happened, this is not going to be an interrogation, more an assessment of your situation."

Matt smiles, calmly. "This ain't a good way to start a conversation," he says, resting against the back of the chair. "We don't even know each other and you're already bein' aggressive."

"Do you know why you've been arrested?"

"The other cops didn't think I needed to, I guess," he explains. In fact, he's not even sure his rights has been read to him. But again, he's not sure the Feds do that.

Agent Lynch sighs, and Matt is pretty sure she's thinking that she's surrounded by idiots. He's not sure if he's included or not, possibly he is. "I've read your file and I suggest you to cut the crap," she says, busying herself with papers she clearly has no need for. 

"Didn't know there was crap for cuttin'," he says.

Agent Lynch snorts, an annoyed, unpretty sound that turns her into a tiny fire-spitting dragon the size of a lizard. "Tonight you were at Martin Scott's house while the rest of your team was trying to rob his vault," she says, leaning forward a little.

"I was in the house," Matt confirms, and the surprise in her eyes is unmistakable. She was clearly expecting him to deny longer. But he's not there to disappoint her, is he? "But I don't know watcha talkin' 'bout. I don't know no vault."

"The vault in the basement," Agent Lynch clarifies.

Matt shakes his head, apologetically. "I was a waiter, "he offers as an explanation. 

"Yes, that's what you want us to believe."

"No, ma'am. I was an actual waiter," he insists. "Got papers 'n all."  
The devil is in the details, that's what Blaine says every time they sit down and decide how they're gonna steal something. When they have to go undercover, they never just pretend. They become whatever they need to become. Annie was Martin's girlfriend for over a year. He had to get _hired_ from the catering service that was taking care of the party. One time, Leo had to be enrolled in school – worst three months for everybody.

Agent Lynch doesn't look like someone who's really believing his words. That's incredibly hurting. You don't ask a dude to talk and then refuse to believe the dude. That's rude. "You're telling me that you were working as a waiter at the party."

"Yes, ma'am."

"And you expect me to believe that, Matt?"

Matt smiles, sweetly. "I don't expect nothing from no one," he explains, which is also a truth. "People got their brain, y'know? You can talk, but they ain't listening. I was a waiter, ma'am. Real thing, with tray'n'all."

She sighs, quite dramatically. "Yes, a tray and an earpiece, which will most probably result connected to the van outside the house."

He shakes his head again. "Dunno whatcha talking about."

"Your mentor, Blaine Anderson, was there," she insists, the face of someone who's trying to make you see the obvious. Matt doesn't fall for that. His face is just blank, like she was talking about pig breeding when he only had always owned cows. "You did time for him, twice."

"Was he there?" He asks, curiously. "Ain't seen him."

Agent Lynch understands that this road is a dead-end. She sighs so deeply that Matt almost wants to comfort her, tell her that they are all – because he has no doubt that the other are doing the same right now – trained to act like this, that maybe someday she'll catch a bad motherfucker, but that day ain't today, and the motherfucker ain't him. Until she retrieves something from her pocket and puts it on the table between them. He pulls back his hands and puts them on his lap, the chain makes a loud, metallic sound slipping against the table and falling down on his knees. Agent Lynch smiles. "Something's wrong?"

"No," he says, more quietly now. 

She pushes the orange bottle towards him. "What are these, Matt?"

The bottle is half full, and there's no label on it, but the white and orange pills inside of it are easy to recognize, so this is not a real question. "Meds," he answers.

"What kind of medications?" She insists.

Matt stays quite for a very long time, never breaking eye contact with her. He knows there's nothing he can do to better his situation, and there's very little he can say to hide the truth here, so he does the only thing he knows will unsettle her. He looks at her. Matt is very tall and very gangly, he never seems to quite fit in the space he's in. Despite his calm, his almost lethargic way of moving, he doesn't look comforting, he doesn't look soft. His body is all sharp angles, even his smile is a little sinister. Especially if he wants it to be. Disguised as a skeleton, with his face covered in white paint, he would scare the children at their show. "It's Adderall, ma'am," he says. 

Agent Lynch smiles. "What do you need it for, Matt?"

Matt keeps his straight face on, his eyes trained on the woman in front of him. "I have a condition," he says.

She doesn't lose her smile. "You don't look like someone who needs it," she comments. 

"Then it must be workin', ain't it?"

Agent Lynch chuckles, but it's an amused laugh that she enjoys alone. "No, I tell you how it is," she says with a sighs. "These are not yours. These are Leo's, aren't they?"

"Dunno this Leo guy," he says. "But he can't be the only using it, can he?"

"I just think that if I test you both, your blood will come out clean and his won't," Agent Lynch says.

Matt doesn't answer to that, there's no point in adding a lie to other lies when it wouldn't work.  
Leo's got his bad moments, and those moments are a real mess. He scared the shit out of Cody the first time they met, it was kinda awful. His computers, good distractions, and his meds keep him in check, but he's not being treated by a real doctor, which makes everything a little more complicated, probably a little more dangerous. He shouldn't be dependent from drugs, but ultimately he is and they are the only way he copes with his condition. Leo always have them with him, but sometimes – and it happened and it was awful – something goes wrong, and he doesn't have the fucking pills in his bag. That's why Matt took the habit to have a box of them with him at all times.

"Anyway, it doesn't really matter who's using it," she continues. "The point is that you've been caught with drugs you have no prescription for. Maybe it's not enough to lock you up, but it is for me to hold you here while I find evidence that you were with the others. And once I found it, and I will Matt, you will be facing a life-time sentence."

Matt sighs. Now, he knows God might have already helped him once, so he doesn't hope for another intervention on his part. But Blaine, he better deliver again.

*  
Blaine hasn't said a word since Agent Vanderbilt dropped the bomb, and that must be a first.  
If anything, his ability to talk himself out of every possible situation is what defines him. It is _his_ special power in the team. The fact is, he's well aware that what he's going to say next can change everybody's situation, so he takes his time to find the right thing to say. Luckily, she doesn't seem to require an answer from him. Not just yet.

"Cody Petersen. He's been with you since he was fourteen, right?" She says, casually. But yet again, she's not really asking. "He's one of the babies in your team, you really care for him. You all do. In four years that he's worked with you, he's never been convincted. Not even once. "

Blaine keeps quiet. He follows her with his eyes as she grabs another piece of paper and starts pacing the room, leaving him to look at her straight back and the cascade of blonde locks that covers it down to her ass. "It rarely happens that we can bring him in, and even when we do, evidence magically appears to clear his name, and another one of the team takes the blame. It seems like we keep confusing him with the others, seeing him where he's never really been."

"It happens to the best of us," Blaine confirms. "Sometimes people look alike. It's a curse to have such a common face."

Except that Cody's face is everything but common. And they both know that. "There's an ongoing bet among my men on who's gonna take the blame next and another one on what will be the time when nobody will," Sam continues. "So, you see, a lot of people could really win some money this time."

Blaine frowns. "Where are you going with this, Vanderbilt?"

She turns around and smiles, and that's a pity that Blaine doesn't like women, or that she's a federal agent just about to fuck them all for that matter. "Y'all bend over backwards to spare him jail. You know very well that he wouldn't survive it, especially not now that he's of age."

Blaine keeps frowning. "Again, where are you going with this, Vanderbilt?" He repeats.

"I'm going where I can help you," she says. "And, most of all, where you can help me. We have an opening for people with skills such as yours and your boys'. And we're willing to make a deal with you all, if you come and put your abilities to our service."

As she speaks, the realization of what she's really saying dawns in Blaine, forcing a smug smirk out of his pursed lips. "Are you offering us a job?" He asks.

Agent Vanderbilt shrugs. "Can't say that I'm not," she answers. "Think about it. You could avoid your kid a future of bullying and raping, and clear the records of all the others. Matt included. Blaine, he's facing a life-time sentence."

This is hilarious. Of all the things he was expecting to hear, this was not even on the list. "And what would we be supposed to do?" He asks, amused. "Sit behind a desk and file paperworks? Fix your computers? Pick the broken locks of your lockers?"

"I will fill you in on what is required of you later," she explains. "Do we have a deal?"

Blaine bursts out in a genuine, strong, loud laugh. He even throws his head back. "Oh no! No we don't!" He says, chuckling. "We are as far from a deal as we could possible be."

"Excuse me?" For the first time they started talking, she's shocked.

"Agent Vanderbilt. Sam. Can I call you Sam?" He smiles. "Yes, I know more about you than you think. But don't worry, all your secrets are safe with me. We've got an HD just for you. Listen, Sam, if you want a deal, then I want to discuss your end of the bargain."

Her current face is priceless. Something about the HD unsettled her, but she's a professional and she's keeping it in check as much as she can. "You are not in a position to negotiate, Anderson," she says, instantly putting some distance between them. "It's either you help us or you and your boys go to jail."

"No," he says shaking his head. "If you are willing to pass the chance to lock us all in, having managed to frame us all for the first time in almost ten years, then you must need us more than we need your pardon. And you can bet I won't give in for just a records cleaning."

*  
Cody has never been in an interrogation room before.

He's been brought in for questioning at the police station and even handcuffed, but this is different. It's not an office with several desks and several police officers working behind them. There's no sound coming from behind the closed door, as if this was the only room in the building and he and the agent with him the only people in it. Even the smell of this place is different from the police station. It's clean, but antiseptic. Like an hospital. Or a laboratory. And it's cold, really cold. He understands these rooms are probably designed to make you feel uncomfortable.

Cody doesn't like it at all. But he's not scared. Not even the agent they sent to sit with him scares him.  
He's a very big man – tall and muscular and with an unfrendly frown – but he was expecting that. Adam told him they were gonna send someone exactly like him. _They are gonna try to intimidate you. They'll send the worst-looking, most threateaning guy they have,_ he has said. Don't let that scare you. He can't touch you. He can't do anything to you.. And Cody trusts Adam, so he's not scared. The man is a little threatening, but Cody is very determined not to let that affect him. He will answer as he was trained to, and that's it.

"Petersen," the agent barks, stomping a huge fists on the table. Cody is startled and turns around, his big blue eyes wide open. "Don't get distracted."

"No, sir," he replies as calmly as he can.

"You were caught red handed in front of a vault," the agent informs him. Cody doesn't understand the need to tell him things they both know perfectly well. "You're not getting away with it this time."

Blaine says that when the police don't ask you any question, you shouldn't give them any comment. Every word that you say can be used against you, so it's better not to give them any word at all, unless you're asked. So, Cody stays silent. 

"None of your collegues can step up for you," the agent continues. And he leans forward, putting his big, squared face an inch closer to Cody's. His breath doesn't smell very good. He probably smokes, or he has a very bad dental hygene. "We caught them all this time. Your friend, the blondie. The girl. The weird guy. And the crazy one. Your boss can't help you either right now."

Cody would like to point out that they all have names and this man should at least make the effort to learn them, since he seems to know them so well. But he probably thinks that, since they are criminals, they don't deserve any respect as human beings. The police tend to do that, but Cody strongly disagrees on the point. Some bad people are criminals – some of them are so mean and vicious that Cody himself would struggle to feel empaty for them – but not all criminals are bad people. Doing something that is illegal doesn't always equal to being a malignant person. None of them would kidnap, torture or kill anybody, for example. None of them would wrong another creature more than stealing their stuff. And they usually steal only to people that won't end up under a bridge afterwards.  
Now, he's not saying that they are saints, but they are not beasts either, and they shouldn't be treated as such. Cody has known a great deal of horrid, inhuman people during his short life, and they were all – all of them – considered _proper people_ by the community. And when he was finally free of them, he had a thief to thank for it, not a _man of God_ , not social services. He learned on his own skin that every person can be either good or bad, despite their job, uniform or social class.

"So, make me laugh," the man says, his smug smile tells Cody that he's really sure there's nothing they can do this time to escape the long arm of the law, and he's taking pleasure out of it. This man'slife must be very dull and lack in purpose if his only moment of pure joy depends on this. "Why were you and your blond boyfriend near the vault when we found you?"

"He is not my boyfriend," he says. Obviously he doesn't care if people think otherwise – and they do have their cuddly moments – he's just trying to avoid the most dangerous question.

"Oh, my apologies," the agent says, sounding everything but sorry. "Neither are the others? So, they save you 'cause you have other abilities that you're willing to share with them?"

Cody knows the drill. He has heard those words so many times before, even when he was supposed to be too young to even understand what they meant. But they stopped to have any effect on him long ago, and yet again, he only has Blaine to thank for. "They never saved me," he lies. The boys and Annie have done the impossible to prevent him from going to prison. He would ask them not to, but they did anyway. They knew that, at the time, he wouldn't survive even juvi, let alone a real prison. Maybe he could now, he doesn't know. What matters is that they always stand out for him, protect him, and all that just because they love him. For real. Not the fake love that was bestowed upon him when he was just a child. He doesn't need to buy it from them.

The agent is still laughing, he doesn't seem to need any reaction from him. It is a one-man show. "So, why were you there?" He repeats.

"We lost our way," Cody answers, promptly. "Scott's house is a very big mansion."

"One you weren't invited to visit," the agent continues. "You two weren't on the guest list."

This is stupid. The man knows they were there to steal from the vault. He's either having fun asking all those questions o he has to because it's standard procedure. Anyway, two can play this stupid game. "You got us," Cody says with a tiny, sweet smile. "You never crashed a party, agent?"

"Not to steal the millions worth of items contained in a vault."

"That's not just _a vault_ , agent."

"Really?" The man arches an eyebrow. "And what is it then, doll?"

"That, agent, is a masterpiece," he says. He sighs, aware that he's about to tell a story the man in front of him is not able to appreciate. "It dates back to 1776, and it still presents its original opening mechanism, perfectly preserved and functional. And, even though other more modern security measures have been added to its protection, the internal locks and gears system of the door are still the most tricky part to elude. As any other antique, it is made to last and the craftmanship is exceptional."

"You seem to know a lot about it."

"It happens when you do something called educating yourself," Cody says, with the most gentle tone he knows of. He never sounds patronizing, even when he most certainly is. "It usually involves things called books."  
The man doesn't look particularly bright, but he's no idiot either – you can't be one if you want to be a Fed, that is what cops are for – so the offence doesn't pass him by at all. But he can't lose his cool, because that would mean Cody won somehow, so he hides his outrage behind an awful grin. Cody is quite impressed with it, actually. The man showed a control over himself that he wasn't expecting. "So you're telling me you were there for the piece of art?"

"That's one way to put it," Cody says. "Vault such as that are rarely find intact. I study them, among other things. And seeing one from up close was one of my dreams."

That's not entirely false. He does study vaults, safe and locking mechanisms. It's one of his favorite subjects and it's essential to the job. He also studies a lot of other things, tho. History, geography, math, biology, physics. He knows both greek and latin, and most of the European language as well. That's the only reason why he doesn't hate his childhood years in that Catholic school completely. His love for books, history and education comes straight from there. His desire to know more is both what makes him a better person now and opened the pit of hell back then. You were invited to sections of the libraries that weren't commonly open, to private lessons, to field trips. And none of those things were totally free as they sounded and as they should have. Everything came with a price. And when he decided that his love for knowledge wasn't worth that much, books became some sort of a consolation prize. If he didn't give up his studies entirely after that part of his life was over is because Blaine made studying fun again by buying all the books he needed and then leaving him alone with them, turning each learning moment into a moment for himself, a moment he shouldn't dread anymore.

"And you usually go to visit masterpieces with your picklocking tools with you, doll?" The agent asks, that grin still bending his lips. "Do you go to see the Monna Lisa with a cutter too?"

"I don't know what you're talking about, sir," Cody says.

"No?" The agent replies. "Maybe I can be more specific."

He retrieves a leather holder from the pocket of his jacket. He puts it on the table, unties the lace that keeps it close and then unrolls it, revealing the series of Cody's tools, carefully placed in their tiny pokets, one next to the other, all shiny and in perfect conditions, as if they were new. Cody's expression doesn't change in the slightest. "Is there a point to be made?" He asks.

"These are yours."

"Maybe," he conceds. "I wouldn't swear on that in a court, tho."

The man smiles. "Luckily for everybody, you won't have to. I'm pretty sure there are your pretty fingerprints all over them, and the fact that they were literally in front of you when we found you will help the judge a great deal."

Cody is not so sure about the fingerprints. He treats them as surgical tools, there's nothing cleaner than them in this room. But they were near him, and he was in front of an hidden vaults in a house he wasn't invited in, after all the previous security system were turned off. Their lawyer might have some problems here.

"You are gonna be charged," the agent continues. "You are going to jail, and I'm not so sure that's gonna be pleasant with the little ass you've got there."

Cody goes rigid, his hands closing into fists in his laps. "I want to see my lawyer now, please."

*

 

Adam knew something was off. 

Did he tell Blaine about it? Yes, of course. Did he listen? Of course not. Blaine doesn't listen to other people's doubts if he thinks he's right. And since he _always_ thinks he's right, then he never listens to anyone else. True, Adam didn't have any real evidence that the heist was gonna be a disaster. Also true, his fears might have had something to do with the fact that Annie had to play Scott's fiancée for an awfully long amount of time and he wasn't okay with that, but wasn't he right in the end? Are they not all stuck in a freaking Federal facility with close to none hope to get out of here without any charges?

He's not worried about himself.  
Adam can deal with everything, the questiong, the arrest, even the state prison. Not that the he's happy to go to jail, but for him it's not the tragedy it'd be for the others. Annie is strong and she's been in jail once already, but Adam doesn't like the idea of her going there for the second time. That is no place for a girl, no matter how tough said girl is.

Matt wouldn't have any problem – his bro is scary enough that even the biggest guys usually leave him alone on account of his creepy way of smiling or his freak show in the showers – but he can't do time again for theft or robbery or scam. Whatever they want to charge him with, it's gonna be the third time, so he can't be declared guilty.

Leo is a mess. He can handle himself despite being so skinny and all, but he's not well. And the prison healthcare wouldn't bother to deal with his head as it should. Apparently, what he suffers from is a kids' thing he should have gotten over by now. But his childhood was crap, and his fucking father couldn't be arsed to help him out, so whatever illness he had, he brought it with him in adulthood. Unfortunately, the prison healtcare doesn't cover it, which mean that he's not qualified to receive a proper treatment. They usually gives him some Adderall every now and then when he gets too hard to manage, but it's not enough.  
And Adam doesn't want to see him coming back the way he was last time. His head was so messed up he could barely function properly.

Then, of course, there's Cody's issue. Adam can't stand the thought of that kid in a prison. He knows what would happen, everybody knows. Cody always says that he can take care of himself, but he can't, and the fact that he's not aware of how hard it would be to survive prison is proof enough that he shouldn't be allowed to put his survival skill to the test. He comes from a background of abuse and he's used to bear with things that are done to him more than he's used to defend himself. He is accomodating – by habit or nature, Adam can't tell – but that's exactly what he can't be in a prison. He needs to toughen up, and he's not even close to it yet.  
He would offer to take the blame for him again, but Cody was right there with him, so there's no way for any of them to do that.

Adam really hopes Blaine's got a plan. He trusts the man, but sometimes he's got the feeling that Blaine disconnects from reality all together and he really believes they can get away with everything. He needs someone to give him a reality check, and that somone has been Adam for the past ten years.  
He met Blaine while he was doing social work – which is more hilarious the more he thinks about it – and despite their rocky beginning, they stuck together ever since. Back then, Adam was an impossible fifteen year old. He had his reasons to be – he knows that – but he's glad to have left everything he was behind, because what he was was a person full of rage, unable to see anything beyond the revenge he thought he deserved to have, who didn't change nor get better once that revenge was taken. 

Blaine was the first adult to acknowledge what Adam has done as a justified act. Up to that point, everybody – the neighbors, the police, the social services – had understood _why_ he had beaten his stepfather, but nobody had condoned the act. Adam was exasperated. Adam was scared. Adam had seen no other choice at the moment. Everybody was ready to give him a lot of mitigating circustances due to his age, his family situation and the financial situation of his family, but nobody absolved the act. 

Blaine did. Blaine sat right next to him and told him, "You did the right thing. That piece of shit deserved to be beaten." That probably did the trick with Adam. He wasn't a violent kid, but he strongly believed that what he had done was necessary, and having someone agreeing with him instead of pitying him for what had happened was something he really needed.

His stepfather ended up in the hospital, with a borken arm and a concussion. He fled the moment the doctors let him leave, and he was never to be seen again. Adam's mother, though loving him, was pretty lost after that, and for a year she sort of blamed Adam for having been left alone. Blaine helped with that too, making her understand that her son had done her a favor. By the time his social work was done, Adam was already in Blaine's team – which was only the two of them – and that was the beginning of it all. A couple of years later, Matt came along, then Annie and then _the babies_ , as Blaine likes to call Leo and Cody, who were thirteen and fourteen at that time. No wonder Adam grew up believing that he has to protect everyone as Blaine himself does.

"Walker," the agent says, sitting down. He's a man in his thirties, short black hair, a squared face. He doesn't seem happy to be here – he's probably one of those who likes action on the field better – but he's not blaming him for that either. He knows he has to do his job and he's doing it, that's the kind of agent Adam likes. "You know the drill. I ask you the questions, you answer the questions. If I don't like those answers, I keep asking questions until you give me what I want. Got it?"

"You know the drill too," Adam says. "I have nothing to say on anything."

The agent smiles. "Unopinionated law offenders are exactly my thing," he says, opening his folder. "I'm pretty sure we can find an argument you know something about."

"You can try."

The agent nods. "Or I can manage," he says.  
And that's how Adam knows that it's gonna be a very annoying questioning.

*

Annie is bored. Worried also, but mainly bored. 

If there's anything that can't be said about the Feds is that they don't know how to make you want to confess every possible crime ever committed by human hand in the past two centuries just to get out of a room. It's even more boring then waiting in line at the post office. At least there are cute old women to help there.

Of all the agents in this damn facility, they assigned her a woman.  
It's probably because they think se can't flirt her way out if she's not dealing with man. That proves how little they know her. She could flirt with a street light, if she needed to. Unfortunately, charming the not so attractive woman in front of her right now won't take her anywhere. One step out of this room, and she'd have the whole of the Federal army on her in an instant. And she never does anything pointless.

"Were you at Mr. Scott's party last night?" The woman asks.

"Yes."

"Why were you there?"

Annie arches an eyebrow. Her legs crossed and her arms crossed over her chest, she's the image of annoyance. "Because I helped organizing it," she answers. "I'm _Mr. Scott_ 's fiancee."

The agent sighs. "When did you meet Mr. Scott?"

"I think it was eight months ago," Annie answers. "At a fundraising."

"Then what?" The agent inquires.

"Then he asked me out. We went out for dinner a couple of times, a few movies and at least three brunches at his private club," she smiles. "I'm not as easy as he tought I was. Then, the magic happened."

She doesn't seem impressed at all. "So, you are telling me that your lovestory with Mr. Scott was real."

Annie makes the most outraged face. "I'm really offended you think it wasn't!" She says, looking everything but shocked, though. She loves when she can be so theatrical in her mocking of a police agent. "I was really much in love."

"And you're not anymore?"

"It's hard to be in love when your boyfriend sell you out to the police for no reason at all," Annie sighs.

"I would hardly say he had no reason," the agent points out. "Your friends were trying to break into his vault."

Annie shakes her head. "I honestly have no idea what you're talking about," she says.

"Please, Annie," the woman says with another sigh. Annie can't decide if she's just tired of her shenanigans or if her mother instinct kicked in and she's just trying to help her out in some twisted, if-you-confess-we-can-make-a-deal kind of way. "You don't really expect me to believe you don't know Blaine Anderson and the other boys."

"Oh, you mean Blaine," Annie nods. "Yes, of course I know him, but I've got nothing to do with what he and the others were doing."

"You mean, you weren't working together?"

"No, and it's extremely offensive that you were assuming that," Annie says. "I worked with them in the past. I paid my debt with society. Martin knew that."

Martin knew a lot of other things about her, not all of them true.  
As Blaine always says, when you decide to lie, you must go as close as possible to the truth to be credible. And she did. She actually told Martin her real story, that she grew up in Europe, that her family was rich and then his father lost everything during the crisis and they were forced to move to the United States and live out of the generosity of a friend, who had been generous as long as parents were alive and then, suddenly, hadn't been anymore. She told him that she had run before the man could get what he wanted, and about the foster home she was sent to when, finally, the police caught up with her after she had lived for two years on the streets. She might have exaggerated the evilness of her foster family a bit, just to be more dramatic – after all, her foster mom was such a doll! Annie _had_ to borrow Leo's story – but the core of it was the truth. All in all, she only abstained from saying that by that time she had become a compulsive liar, which wasn't working well with her new life, both at home and at school. Blaine came along a few years later, just in time to avoid her a lot more trouble – even if right now she's in more trouble than she had ever been. Still, she can't deny that Blaine turned what was just _a liar_ into a state-of-the-art con artist.

"Martin knew who you were all along," the agent says, patiently. "He was working with us."

That had stung a little, when Annie had realized that. Not because she really loved Martin, of course, but because it never does any good to your reputation as a scammer when someone else scams you. "Men, huh?" She says with a meaningful glance at her fellow woman. "Such assholes!"

"So you didnt give Blaine the codes Martin Scott gave to you," the agent inquired.

Well no, she didn't give them to Blaine. She gave them to Leo. Blaine would never have known what to do with a bunch of serial numbers. "Martin didn't give me any code," she answers. That is true too.

"Right, but he made so you could find them."

"I didn't find anything," Annie insists. "I don't know what you're talking about. I didn't even see the vault."

"Your friends had the codes, tho."

"Well, maybe _they_ found them, and they are not my friends," Annie replies. "Listen, if there's any evidence that can link me to the crime--"

She was about to dare this woman to keep her in the room with no evidence, but there's suddenly commotion just outisde the room and they both turn to the door that remains closed, though.  
"Stay here!" The agent orders.

Annie shows her her handcuffed hands. "Wasn't planning to grow superpowers and free myself," she says. And she really really hope this mess is Blaine.

*

"I said, go sit back now!" Agent Comb-over says. This is the third time that he repeats those words, and his voice is getting progressively more hesitant because Leo doesn't seem to respond to his orders at all. "Leonard, you're only making things worse for you."

Leo couldn't sit anymore. He doesn't want to do anything, he won't do anything if they let him stand and free him. He doesn't even care if they want to send him in prison, anything would be better than this room and this chain. He shows his hands to the man. "Please, agent, just let me free," he says. He's trying to speak as slowly and calmly as he can, but he already gave in to his nerves once, slamming his hands on the table, and the agent doesn't trust him.

"Back off and sit down," the man says again, his hand nervously brushing over the gun at his hip. 

Leo knows the man is more ready to shoot him than really listening to him, and that makes him hopeless. He whines, taking his face in his hands. His head hurts and he can't focus on anything. "Just, please... open these things," he pleads, taking a step forward. He moves too suddenly and using more strenght than he thought, so he pulls at the chain and the table screeches.

"Stay back!" The agent screams, pointing the gun at him. The man is nervous, which can lead to the worst possible outcome, and Leo can't explain to him that he's feeling like he's about to explode if he doesn't move his hands now and all the little sounds in the room have become so loud that he can't ignore them, not even one of them, and they are making him crazy.

That's when the door opens. The puff of air that invades the room breaks the stilness in the room. The agent turns to see what's going on and Leo just leans against the wall, rolling his head against it. "What's going on here?" Comb-over says, his nervousness quickly turned to rage when he sees a woman walking in, followed by Blaine. "What he's doing here?"

Blaine pushes the man aside, ignoring his protests, ignoring the gun that, even though it's not aimed anymore, it's still out of the holster.

"Leo?" Blaine's voice is calm. It's never crossed by fear or nervousness. Blaine always gives you the impression of knowing what to do or what you need, even when you yourself do not. "Leo, look at me."

Leo raises his head slowly, trying to focus through the pounding in his brain, and he sobs when he realizes whom he's looking at. "I just asked him to free my hands," he murmurs, in a tired voice. He remembers the same words repeated over and over and over in the past with nobody listening to them. "I didn't want to run."

"Give me the keys," Blaine says to the agent.

"What the hell is he doing here?" The agent repeats, talking to the woman. "What's going on?"

"Do as he says, Jenkins," the woman says. So Comb-over has a name. "He works with us, now. They both do."

Leo waits to hear the metal sound of the handcuffs being opened. Then he falls into Blaine arms when he wraps them around him. Since nothing else works, he focuses his mind on the beating of the man's heart. "I screwed up," he says, when the world comes back to him again in a series of sounds, images and colors that he can divide and ignore if he wants to.

"No, you didn't," Blaine says, kissing him on his head. "Everything's okay. We have a deal, now."

Leo can feel Blaine's smile in his voice, and he automatically smiles too. He has no idea what Blaine's talking about, but it doesn't really matter. Half the things they do, they do trusting that he knows what they're doing. And Blaine has never let them down. So this deal – about what and with whom doesn't matter – can only be a good thing.


End file.
